The Physics and Psychophysics of Music: An Introduction

Paperback | October 9, 2008

This introductory text deals with the physical systems and biological processes that intervene in what we broadly call "music." It analyzes what physical properties of sound patterns are associated with what psychological sensations of music, and describes how these sound patterns are actually produced in musical instruments, how they propagate through the environment, and how they are detected by the ear and interpreted in the brain. Without using complicated mathematics, the author weaves a close mesh between the disciplines of acoustics, psychophysics, and neurobiology, offering an integral picture of not only the science of music, but also the "music of science", that is, the beauty and excitement of scientific research, reasoning and understanding. This text should be accessible to undergraduate-level students, whether from science, arts or engineering schools, but it should also be useful to professional musicians, physics educators, acoustical engineers and neuroscientists. The fourth edition incorporates recent research on tone generation in musical instruments and latest findings in brain science, including substantially updated coverage of psychophysics and brain function relevant to music perception, new results from tomographic imaging, and new understanding of the neural processes responsible for human consciousness and the emotional response of the brain to music.

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This introductory text deals with the physical systems and biological processes that intervene in what we broadly call "music." It analyzes what physical properties of sound patterns are associated with what psychological sensations of music, and describes how these sound patterns are actually produced in musical instruments, how they ...

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This book, a classic in its field, deals with the physical systems and physiological processes that intervene in music. It analyzes what objective, physical properties of sound are associated with what subjective psychological sensations of music, and it describes how these sound patterns are actually generated in musical instruments, ...

The author is a space scientist of international reputation with a close and active relation with music (he studied organ with the late maestros Héctor Zeoli in Buenos Aires and Hans Jendis in Göttingen), who organized and directed the international workshops on the Neuropsychological Foundations of Music at the Carinthian Music Festiv...

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Table of Contents

Preface.- The Science of Music and the Music of Science: A Multidisciplinary Overview.- Sound Vibrations, Pure Tones, and the Perception of Pitch.- Sound Waves , Acoustic Energy, and the Perception of Loudness.- Generation of Musical Sounds, Complex Tones, and the Perception of Timbre.- Superposition and Succession of Complex Tones, and the Integral Perception of Music.- Appendix 1: Some Quantitative Aspects of the Bowing Mechanism.- Appendix II: Some Quantitative Aspects of Central Pitch Processor Models.- Appendix III: Some Renarks on Teaching of Physics and Psychophysics of Music.- References.- Index

Editorial Reviews

From the reviews of the fourth edition:"This book deals with the physical systems and biological processes that interact with music, analyzing 'what objective, physical properties of sound patterns are associated with what subjective, psychological sensations of music.' . Roederer is well known for promoting music as a multidisciplinary subject. . While there are plenty of good books on the physics of music . Roederer's classic is the best. This book will be an asset to any scientific library." (Soubhik Chakraborty, ACM Computing Reviews, November, 2009)"This book . not only suitable for lay-readers, but can also act as a springboard for more technically minded readers wishing to pursue a thorough foray into the field. . open questions which makes the reader want to come back for more. Credit can only be given to the author for creating such an engaging read. . this fourth edition of the book incorporates a number of recent results supporting hypotheses posited in earlier versions . ." (Matthew R. Foreman, Contemporary Physics, Vol. 52 (3), May-June, 2011)"The different aspects of the close relationship between science and music are discussed in this book. . will be of interest to the non-science student, or simply to the music addict teenager . . The book will definitively be pleasant . reading for a scientist with a strong interest or love in music." (Gary J. Long and Fernande Grandjean, Belgian Physical Society Magazine, Issue 3, 2010)